Ethics (Religion)

by Carl, Monday, September 29, 2008, 03:49 (5694 days ago) @ dhw

Poor Neil. Just about the time he gets us organized, we fly off on a new tangent. I decided to put this in an ethics discussion.
Dhw speaks of "rights not only of other individuals but also of other forms of life."
My equating ethics with wisdom does not address all aspects of ethics. This is such an area. Doubtless, there is wisdom in preserving our natural world. I think Global Warming highlights this. But there are areas in the treatment of fellow creatures that might be difficult to include in wisdom. Maybe we should create a category called "animal dignity" that would cover the ethical treatment of animals. Humane treatment of animals was seen by many up through the first half of the twentieth century as a luxury or indulgence, not really covered by ethics. But there has been a growing opinion that treatment of our fellow creatures is an important area of ethics. There is little objective basis in logic or western religion to justify this position, but it is something that an increasing number of people feel.
This points up something about my use of wisdom as ethics. It is a pragmatic approach rather than an authoritarian approach to ethics, a revival of the "situational ethics" concept so condemned a few decades ago. Ethics change with culture and circumstance. I believe this is the proper approach to ethics for agnostics and atheists, and is also practiced by religious people in deciding to emphasize or deemphasize certain strictures, such as eating pork, drinking alcohol or sex outside wedlock. But this is consistent with use of wisdom as ethics, because what is seen as wise varies by culture and circumstance. 
Dhw speaks of the miscarriage of justice in execution of innocent people. Focusing only on executed persons in this way is too narrow. A innocent person who serves life in prison or even a year in prison is also a victim of the system. The issue of execution should not be combined with the issue of miscarried justice. The judicial system should be rigorous in its pursuit of justice, but it will never be 100%. Here is another area where absolute truth is not obtainable, and there can be terrible consequences of leaning to far toward the accused so that guilty people are freed to murder again. Both false positives and false negatives have bad consequences, and a balance must be struck to minimize both, because either way there will be innocent victims.
Dhw mentions eating of meat as a problem area. I have equated the attitude of eating meat today to the attitude toward slavery in 1800. It is the closest comparison I can think of to illustrate the cultural ethics of slavery. People of that time did not envision a day when they would be viewed as evil and depraved for owning slaves, just as people now cannot imagine a time when they could be viewed as monsters for consuming flesh. But, if society moved to enforced vegetarianism, such a day would come. I stopped hunting while I was still a young man, and now I cannot conceive of taking pleasure in the killing of fellow creatures. But I have many friends and relatives who hunt, and today it is seen as a matter of personal conviction, much as slavery was in 1800.
Dhw says morality is pursuit of happiness in such a way that it causes minimal harm to humanity and to other forms of life, but "humans are too diverse to create a just world." 
I agree that idea should be at least a strong component of a full definition of morality, but I am somewhat more optimistic about the just world. I think humanity has made tremendous strides in morality over the past two hundred years. Abolition of slavery, changes in acceptable reasons and methods in war, concern for our suffering brethren in other countries and many other areas have improved vastly. I am quite optimistic for the future, but the progress could be very fragile.